Mind Uploading and Indefinite Life

Lifetimes Infinity (LI) is an organization dedicated to the pursuit of indefinite life, with efforts currently focused on mind uploading. This page lists the projects that we’re working on.

Lifetimes Infinity’s Roadmap

Neo Navigator

Neo Navigator is an application for creating, managing, and simulating large neural networks.

The Indefinite Life Handbook

The Indefinite Life Handbook is a roadmap that fully explains the entire background of why mind uploading is our goal and how we plan to take on mind uploading.

The LI Team

Build Out The Initial LI Team – R&D will continue forward no matter the size of the LI team, but the more manpower we can get behind us, the faster we can move. Once we have developed a prototype (BCI or neuromorphic chip), it will be easier to demonstrate our capabilities in order to attract new team members.

Expanding The LI Team – Once LI becomes a business (and can pay team members a salary), attracting new team members will be that much easier. As with building the initial team, continued growth will give us more manpower in our pursuit of mind uploading, which is essential in this multidisciplinary domain.

Full Mind Uploading Kit And Procedure – This is essentially the end goal of mind uploading — having the technology and means to upload a human mind to another substrate in order to facilitate an indefinite lifespan.

BCI

Building brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) that operate on scales that aren’t nano-micro would not help us build toward the end product we actually need. What this means is there isn’t really a way to directly work toward mind uploading while incrementally decreasing the scale of the BCI, so we have to incrementally build the BCI in other ways. The importance of working incrementally is to be able to create products to further fund R&D without having to do the whole thing in one go. In addition, it allows us to rapidly prototype, affording us the opportunity to move faster away from things that aren’t working and faster toward new opportunities that arise.

Nano-Micro Scale BCI Prototype – It’s necessary to get down to this scale to be able to interact with individual neurons. This will be mostly a proof-of-concept that will give us insights into building bigger and better BCIs. It will also be something that gets people interested in what we’re working on and help attract new team members.

Nano-Micro Scale BCI Devices – This is going to be one of our first two products.

Scale Up BCI To Increase Scope/Bandwidth – Scope/bandwidth refers to the amount of neuronal connections the interface has. As we scale this up, we can interface with more of the brain at the same time. One thing to note is that the final BCI product suitable for uploading will require 2-way communication (recording/stimulating) with the brain.

Refine BCI For Scalability, Efficiency, And Reliability – Scalability and efficiency are both self-explanatory. Reliability refers to both the reliability of recording and stimulating as well as the lifespan and durability of the device itself. Other issues will arise with the BCI that will need to be worked out over time, but these are the major ones that we can foresee.

Exocortex

Unlike the BCI, we can incrementally work toward building the final exocortex in every aspect, giving us more options for creating products and choosing a development path to reach our end goal.

Neuromorphic Chip Prototype – As with the BCI prototype, developing a neuromorphic chip prototype would get more people interested in what we’re doing and help attract new team members. Starting R&D on this doesn’t require any other devices on this list. Neuromorphic chips are useful for both AI and neuroprostheses. A more developed version of this will likely end up being one of our first two products.

Neuroprostheses – It would be nice to have a nano-micro scale BCI at this point (even if severely limited in bandwidth), but even using the current state of BCIs, we can make useful neuroprosthetics building toward mind modules that also act as products in and of themselves.

Mind Modules – These are the building blocks of the artificial mind framework, created through both bottom-up and top-down approaches. They will be able to be turned into useful neuroprostheses (replacing lost functions) as well as being able to extent functions. Considering that mind modules are going to be developed aimed specifically at mind uploading, turning these into intermediary products that stand by themselves will be trickier (without stepping too far off of the path toward mind uploading), but completely doable. At this point, we start to get into areas that absolutely require more advanced BCIs.

Exocortex / Artificial Mind Framework – The artificial mind framework is to the exocortex what the mind is to the brain. The artificial mind framework is not necessarily an artificial mind, but simply a framework on which a mind could arise, be instantiated on, or be transferred to. The exocortex (exo = outside) is the digital brain outside of the human brain — the device we aim to create that allows for the transfer of the mind from its biological substrate (the human brain) to this new digital substrate. The exocortex and artificial mind framework will be produced from the many mind modules we create over the years.

This is a brief introduction to Lifetimes Infinity’s plan for pursuing mind uploading. There are more intermediary steps than what has been discussed here. If you are interested in learning more, be sure to check out the Roadmap Series when it is released.